The present invention relates to a novel seal, rotor and housing assembly for rotary valved internal combustion engines. Many skilled in the engine art have regarded the rotary valved engine--having a driven rotary valve body for a timed admission of a metered charge to an engine cylinder and a timed expulsion of combusted gases from the cylinder--to be theoretically superior to a conventional poppet-valved engine. This is because the rotary valved engine is provided with a valve body or rotor which is rotated in a single direction to effect both inlet and exhaust functions without the cam shafts, push rods, complex springs and reciprocating valving present in conventional internal combustion engines.
A major barrier to the mass production of a rotary valved internal combustion engine has been the difficulty in providing reliable and yet inexpensive seals for the valves in the areas surrounding the inlet and exhaust ports of the valve in communication with the engine combustion chamber.
The lack of reliable seal assemblies has caused most prior art rotary valve engines to fail after only short periods of engine operation, largely because failure of the seals causes high pressure combustion gases to burn out bearing assemblies supporting the valve rotor.
Typical rotary valve seal assemblies have been unsatisfactory for several reasons: first, the seal devices are typically not sufficiently lubricated; second, prior art seals have failed to prevent the travel of pressurized exhaust gases axially along the valve rotor from a cylinder on exhaust stroke, into an adjacent cylinder on intake stroke, causing high pressure gas erosion of the rotor surface, uneven heating of the valve body, and loss of engine efficiency; third, typical prior art rotary valve seals have required milled seal seats within the rotor housing--making the manufacture and assembly of the rotary valve seals on a mass production basis prohibitively expensive.